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Weekly Board Meeting

There was lots of positive news to discuss today ranging from the Alabama Journey of Hope to several articles in the Birmingham News and the Guardian in the U.K., which all highlighted the problems with the application of the death penalty in Alabama. Also discussed were developments in CA and in Texas where a judge ruled that state's death penalty unconstitutional.

After the weekly update on death penalty news,(fortunately not too much of that during this season), bookkeeping and writing of Thank yous for donations received, it was time for the Christmas/New Year party.

The Board meeting was delayed, however when it took place topics for discussion were the European Commission Press Release and the overturning of Magwood's death sentence. Could it be that Santa is trying to come to Holman after all? Of course we are all encouraged by both of these pieces of news, but have just one additional request for Santa: Could you please bring us Justice here in Alabama, so that Esther can stop saying: "And then there is Alabama."

The men were very interested to learn about the latest development with the lethal injection drug in Nebraska and wondered whether the middle man who had diverted the drug could be sued by the company.(see below) As always, we questioned the source of Alabama's lethal injection drugs.

One of the Board members was pleased to report that EJI has taken on his appeals. As Alabama is the only state, which does not provide postconviction legal assistance finding pro-bono representation is a huge issue for the men.

Today the following motion was made, seconded and approved by all present:

MOTION

The Board of Project Hope respectfully suggests that Governor Kitzhaber of OR and Governor Bentley of Al switch states. We believe that not only could AL greatly benefit from the leadership of a Governor who pronounced the death penalty morally wrong and unjustly administered, but it would save our governor from being repeatedly put in the position of making choices, which one would hope he too would come to regret.

We discussed the article in the Japan Times Online on the execution of the mentally ill, which highlighted the most recent execution in our state, Christopher Johnson. It is obvious that most of the rest of the world is horrified by our actions and questions our concept of justice.

We were pleased to hear that Hank Skinner received a stay, even as we remembered Darrell Grayson who was denied DNA testing.

One can always count on Board members to come up with creative ideas on how to get the word out. The latest, and one which, I told them, I fully support is to order T-shirts with our new logo. They already have excellent ideas on distribution. They told me that they still have some work to do on this, but wanted to make sure they had my support.... It is inititatives like that, which tell the world that we are a life row and not a death row.